29 March 2012
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I have been compiling the news pages for Family Tree's May issue, on sale 20 April, and thought I would include here a brief roun
I have been compiling the news pages for Family Tree's May issue, on sale 20 April, and thought I would include here a brief round up of stories from the past week or two that you may have missed.
Findmypast.co.uk has published online the first batch of parish records held by the City of Westminster Archives Centre. The Westminster Collection at findmypast.co.uk comprises fully searchable transcripts and scanned images of the parish registers, some of which are more than 400 years old. For more details of the project see our previous news story here.
Historypin is marking the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee by creating a global archive of the Her Majety’s visits and Jubilee celebrations. People from all over the world and from every generation can share photographs, videos and memories of the Queen’s visits and the Jubilee celebrations from throughout her reign. Buckingham Palace has already provided a selection of images of items from the Royal Archives, plus there have been contributions from a number of other major archives. Now Historypin is looking for contributions from individuals and archives. So if you’ve got photos, videos or memories of Her Majesty visiting your town or documenting your own royal celebrations, do add them to Historypin at www.historypin.com/diamondjubilee.
Bradford Family History Society is working with West Yorkshire Archive Service to make the tithe maps for the Bradford area, and their apportionments, available online.
Network Rail has created a virtual online archive of historic UK railway infrastructure. The information is categorised into five sections: stations; people; companies; tunnels; and bridges/viaducts. It includes just a small selection of the entire Network Rail archive, however, which is thought to hold more than 5 million records. Access is free.
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc has published The National Archives’ first branded children’s books, about RMS Titanic, now available from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/bookshop.
The National Archives of Ireland has digitised its wills calendars from 1923 to 1982. The equivalent probate calendars for the counties of Northern Ireland, both before and after partition, from 1858 to 1943, are also available in database format at www.proni.gov.uk/index/search_the_archives/will_calendars.htm. FamilySearch is indexing the digitised calendars for the whole of Ireland 1858-1920.
Two recordings of Society of Genealogists workshops at Who Do You Think You Are? Live 2012 are now online at www.whodoyouthinkyouarelive.com/news/listen-our-workshops-online. More talks will follow soon.
Anguline Research Archives is now offering the majority of its 592 CDs as digital downloads, giving customers the choice of immediate availability rather than waiting for the delivery of a CD.
BBC2’s historical property programme, ‘Restoration Home’, is looking for historic or unusual properties for a new series. If you are involved in the renovation of a period property and are interested in taking part, call 0333 577 7740 or email [email protected] with your name, contact number and a few details about the property. (Calls to this number will be charged at your local rate, mobiles may vary.)
Worcestershire Record Office has combined with Worcestershire Historic Environment and Archaeology Service to become a new joint service – Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service. It is moving into a new building – The Hive – which will enable the provision of a wider range of resources to users as a new joined-up service. The Hive will open to the public in July 2012. The Worcestershire History Centre, at Trinity Street, Worcester, will be closing to the public on Saturday 21 April 2012 in order to prepare for the move.
Plans have been announced for a new home for The British Postal Museum & Archive (BPMA). The new centre will be established at Calthorpe House, on London’s Mount Pleasant site, where the country’s oldest mail centre is located. It is close to the existing home of the BPMA at Freeling House, which has very limited space for exhibitions and displays. The new centre will allow the BPMA to exhibit objects from its fascinating museum collection, which is currently held in storage. It will also include educational facilities for visiting schools.
The rootsireland.ie Online Research System is now using a credit system. See the site for more info.
The Marks and Spencer Company Archive containing more than 70,000 items has moved to new premises in the Michael Marks Building at the University of Leeds. The move will make the archive fully accessible to the public for the first time while also opening up the collections to academics and students for research, teaching and learning. A new website at marksintime.marksandspencer.com has been launched to coincide with the opening of the archive.